The relationship between reputational risk and management control: Implications for future research
The purpose of this research is to conduct an explorative study regarding the relationship between reputational risk and management control. The paper analyses the existing literature through two steps. First, the authors perform a bibliometric analysis of 238 papers in order to capture the literature basic information, such as the most productive authors and their geographical distribution, variations across publication years, and major journals. Then, the authors conduct a systematic literature review across the 28 most-cited articles of our collection. Findings show that scientific studies linking control to reputational risk mainly adopt an audit and risk management approach, delivering a structured picture made up of actions, processes, and tools for mitigating and monitoring the reputational risk. Little attention is paid to a control approach guided by predefined objectives, targets, and key performance indicators. The analysis reveals a wider diversification of topics in the research field. Furthermore, the analysis also reveals not only the absence of an integrated framework capable of constituting a mechanism for guiding and directing the activity of management but also the absence of a valid support for decision-making processes. This study helps to understand how reputational risk and management control studies evolve, and the direction these studies currently take, thereby identifying available avenues for future research.
Keywords: Reputational risk, Management control, Bibliometric analysis, Systematic literature review.
